eachdraidh | video / action (?)

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[ It's all misery footage, Caer Glaem in paltry glory: rammed gates, scratched walls, torn stone, upturned soil, roughened up trees. The locket's coverage pauses on each 'tourist attraction' from a high vantage point, briefly stumbling on hands that are exceedingly worn, blistered and bitten. ]

What has... what's... wrought this? How many dead does the court mourn, how many supplies were lost to - to enemy unknown?

[ A pause, then less startled, slightly cold. ]

...how do they wish us to make war upon each other, if they give siege first? Not the finest general, not the most accomplished tactician can devise strategy against Anaximander's unknown. Not Caesar - Caesar, who had little gain from the Gauls without paying the blood price, but at least he knew what enemy lay in wait.

And we? Look here. Remember this next you think the time is nigh to fight well and fight fairly: we are not armed with weapon or knowledge. We are played for puppets, and when our masters go without their laughs, our strings are cut.

[ Muttered. ]

'Lawkamercyme'. Hah. We do not even know what the word means, or who gave it to us for the telling.

[ ooc: ...and lo, a ~~much belated, for RL KO'd, APOLOGIES!~~ wild intruder appears in the Seelie court! He's given up his war declaration in favour of sheer horror at Ariadne's mad interior decorating skillz. Those who'd like to run into a Borgia need but look for the 'worker' who's... probably... holding... the tools by the wrong end. ]

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And you forget the nature of these lands. We are not home. Killing me would not put an end to me. [Though she very much dislikes the tone he takes about it, too separated, too cruel.]

Could you be so vile to kill a woman in her rooms? Has not your master taught you duty, tact, respect, what is right and godly for is not "thou shalt not kill" holy scripture?

[Not that there is not call for it. There is war, there is murder, there is vengeance, but Lucrezia is not nearly immersed in political strategies, in the ruthless underbelly of the dealings of men in power. There will come a day when it will shape her, change her world view, but for now she has been raised in the law of men and the law of God.]

[ Oh, enough. Enough of it. His hand comes up again - objection, defence, he himself can't say. 'Whatever it will take to earn quiet'. Yes. That. ]

I spoke of possibility, Lucrezia, not current eventuality.

[ And it occurs to him (he frowns) belatedly that he might have spoken to the point of rousing her upset. ]

Think little of it. I have heard too many stories of deeds and horrors done. It's put the fear in me, and the mistrust also.

You once told me that I should not trust even you. [She eyes him surreptitiously.]

And now you present me with scenarios ghastly enough that I wonder now what you are capable of. Towards me.

Always better to ask what a man will not do. Less for the speaking.

[ But he does smile, rather satisfied with something - Lucrezia, or the book he closes. ]

I'll be taking this with me. And - [ A nod to the right. ] - that one. But not - [ And now, frowning, one to the left. ] - that. That one's no good. You may keep it.

[ Because a courier demands. ]

I like it better here. For all your... recent troubles. Your court's rooms are better lit. To read in Caer Scima is to damn your eyes.

[She shrugs. They are not books she cares much about. Her tome is hidden away.]

You are welcome to stay with me as long as you wish then. My rooms are ample enough. [She's told they are rooms for royalty, though it is no surprise.]

[ But they are books he hasn't read, and therefore well worth his time.

Depositing them aside, like any triumphant magpie, he finally does what he should have from the beginning - covers their distance, stopping a short few paces away for the obligatory bow. She is still, after all, a lady of Rome.

A lady grown.

His hand goes out. ]

May I see you? It has been years.

[She preens at his actions now, much less grumpy now that he treats her as she should be treated. Her head turns just slightly and she stands to nod and dip just slightly. She knows she does not need to for he holds no real titles, but she appreciates his gesture.]

You know me? [Of course there is a familiarity to him, but she tries to remember if she can even remember any of Medici's men-- Cesare must know him. For he must be close in age.]

[ Good reflexes, fast form. She's done her dancing masters credit.

A few steps each way, and he's seen her from the better angles, caught a notion of just which of their parents she takes from (their mother; her). ]

I knew you, as a child. A child and no more. I... had something for you.

[ His hand lowers, catches on the inside of his coat, fishes out - and stops. ]

Which of your brothers do you love best?

[Her nose crinkles at the idea. Affection. If only she was not paying so much attention to Cesare perhaps she could remember him. He looks much like her brother though, dark curled hair and same features. But she knows when she saw Cesare as a child, nothing else mattered. It is what makes her answer so quickly.]

Cesare. [Her hands told in front of her.] He is the one I miss the most from home. I love the others, but Cesare and I are inseparable. But then we are spaniards. It is natural.

[ Cesare. It's... unsettling to hear the name born of her mouth. Pleasing.

The smile takes his mouth. ]

Yes. It is natural.

[ Though nothing about their nature is kind.

His hand delays on the inside of his jacket, returns finally with a long, ornate gold chain - a bishop's rosary. It's held out. ]

It was meant for delivery to don Cesare after he was named bishop in Pamplona. Best you have it for protection.

[ And because he really needs to be rid of his jewellery. ]

[She takes the rosary in her hands, brows furrowing. It is good to have something of his, and truly she is touched. But--]

Cesare is a Cardinal now. How did you come by this?

Delivery.

[ Repeated slowly, as if it might explain it all: delivery, couriership. Yes. The story holds.

But her truth troubles him somehow more than his fiction. ]

He was not cardinal when I last knew him. Barely bishop.

I told you, our father has become the Father to all men. [Her smile is almost dutiful though she still holds the rosary like it is the finest china she has seen. It is a gift given that he doesn't even know the value of, and it pulls at heart.]

He is in the Vatican now, our Holy Father's right hand.

[ If he grips the book just so - just so - he won't blanch. He can't. In the Vatican, beside the Holy Father, where boredom and delays and ugly things lie.

God, but he'd hoped better. ]

As... as becomes him. [ His teeth ungrit - there. ] No doubt. My congratulations to... to... don Cesare. Cardinal Borgia.

[Her laugh is faint, but sweet.]

You look as pleased as he did when he heard the news. Are you not happy for him?

[ His jaw's too tense - it starts almost to pain him, before he remembers to stop gritting his teeth. ]

Overjoyed. As you see, I am... speechless.

And yet your jaw tenses, and you react to the news as if I have told you your mother is ill.

[You cannot lie to a liar, Cesare.]

[ Their eyes hold, glance sharp and level; he wants to, but can't look away first. ]

Perhaps she is. I've not seen her in long.

[ Might not yet see her ever again, but his sister - yes, his sister is here. He opens his mouth - closes it - opens it again, fish on shore, then: ]

...Lucrezia. Listen to me.

[ And it's such strain to tame your voice to honesty, even when sincere. ]

I am... in many ways the man you do not wish me to be. And that man sometimes peers. And when you see him, do not ask. Is that... no, it is a high request, but I must make it. Do not ask. For your sake and mine own.

[She eyes him suspiciously again. What he's saying doesn't make sense, except for the fact that nothing he has said has added up, and the more she delves, the more she questions his relation to her family.

And in that light--]

Can I trust you?

[He's told her once that she can't trust anyone. She repeated that to him since then, but... But if he is implying, if he is dancing around this truth that she does not even know how to begin processing, then perhaps it gives her some hope. She has missed her brother more than anything, and even if she questions how this could be so, she needs to know the answer to the question she's posed.

Can she trust him like she trusts Cesare? The last part goes unsaid, but implied so heavily in the way she looks on him, eyes almost pleading.]

[ She's breath-taking when she strikes. They had hoped for it - the family had wedded grace and character and their breeding within her - but it's a strange, beautiful thing to see it manifest.

He wastes entirely too long, mouth agape and simply spectating her. ]

...cruel. You are cruel to ask. How can I answer?

[ Through rhetoric and artifice and all those things that say little, but fill the time. He can, if he tries, deceive his own sister.

No. A smile, instead, bittersweet. ]

Keep malice for the Sforza, for della Rovere, for the Medici. Don't give it to me.

I do not hate my husband. [She feels too much right now though. There's an elation that wishes to sweep her features, but her heart clenches too much and confusion and skepticism is still writ on her face.]

I told... I told my brother [For saying his name seems too odd a thing.] his vocabulary is limited. He is a hard man, and I was traded for an army.

I'm not sure how I feel. [And all emotion drops from her face. She chooses to ignore it here. Politics are meaningless to this place when they should be holding allegiances to courts.]

But I have always found comfort in your familiarity, however cruel it may seem to you.

[ However cruel. However suiting. He's hesitated too long in this entire encounter: it's driven her to doubt and accounts and recollection.

And he hesitates again, only this time he recovers to more of himself, expression exorcised of Valentino Masi's joie de vivre and schooled into something resembling poise. Apathy. The Borgia charm.

His books should be used to abandon by now. He closes on her slow enough to encourage trust, light on his step before he's just within reach to take both her hands in his, come to one knee with both in grasp. ]

I want very badly to say that you can trust me.

[The action is so much like Cesare that she cannot help the flush in her cheeks as her teeth bite the bottom of her lip. Home, she feels as if she is home, and even if she is unsure of how this is possible or how he hid himself from her, none of it particularly matters, because his words are their own bittersweetness.

Her hands clutch back and she leans into him.]

Then love me like only you can love me. Do not hurt me, and do not lie. Whatever your reasons, I am loyal to you. At least afford me that if you cannot give me the truth.

[She has questions, hidden in the raise of her eyebrow, but for now she is too overjoyed at him being in her presence.]

[ He is a man of sixteen, and men of sixteen don't shed tears, and he will not - he will not be the weaker of the two of them, they can't afford it. Can't possibly.

Nodding feebly, he lets his head fall for a moment, forehead touching the back of her hands, resting before his collects himself to kiss her knuckles reverently in the way every good brother might salute the parent or sibling he's gone without for long. ]

I swear it.

[ A moment, and his voice is stronger. ]

By God's grace, when He watches, and by my sword when He does not. You will bleed for nothing and you will weep for nothing and you will want for nothing. I swear it.

[She tries to bring him to stand, pleased all the more by his vow. It only pleases her and lifts her spirits even higher than they were.]

Then my rooms are always open to you. All that is mine here is yours. None else need to know.

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